1999’s Best Rock Albums

A peer-to-peer file-sharing site set up by Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker became an industry-shifting phenomenon called Napster. Who could have guessed that we’d stop buying albums?

Well, actually, David Bowie. He became the first commercial artist to make his new studio project available for download, a full two weeks before it arrived on store shelves.

It got stranger. The year's last nine Billboard Top 100 lists were capped by Carlos Santana, who found himself in an entirely unlikely spot performing with an even more unlikely singer. Who could have guessed that all Santana – who hadn’t reached the Top 10 since 1970, and had never had a No. 1 song – needed to do was start working with the guy from Matchbox Twenty?

Or that the Flaming Lips would finally notch their long-awaited breakthrough? Or that Styx’s long tenure with Dennis DeYoung would come to a crashing halt?